Ask a Silly Question
by Mickleditch
Summary: Ornshaw takes some time out in class and lives to regret it. Or maybe not. Corporal punishment/spanking; some kink, quite a bit of humor, nothing illegal actually happens.


Ask a Silly Question

_(or, Take It Like a Man)_

_(or, It's Better to Receive Than to Give)_

_(or, Bottoms Up!)_

_(or, Confessions of a Lambeth Schoolboy)_

Disclaimer: Melody and all characters copyright to Hemdale and Goodtimes Enterprises and written by Andrew Birkin and Alan Parker.

Author's Notes:

#1: Obvious exaggerations. Bare backside slipperings and canings still occurred in private schools at this point in time, but were virtually non-existent in state schools. The ol' 'six of the best' was also usually the max punishment.

#2: As described in this fic, that very British form of CP known as the 'slipper' was not a slipper in the usual sense of the word, but a euphemism for a plimsoll or tennis shoe. It wouldn't break the skin like a cane had the potential to do, but was still _bloody_ hard and would bruise.

#3: Was supposed to be more of a straight-up spanking fic, but I failed almost from the word go because it kept wanting to be funny. This is what happens when our hero has an attitude.

#4: Character is 13. Actor was actually 17 if that makes you happier.

xoxox - xoxox - xoxox

* * *

On the lid of Ornshaw's desk, some occupant has once scratched, _WHO SITS HERE? PLS SIGN YOUR NAME_, and beneath it is a list: _J CARR, Helen, muLLAlly, LESLEY BELL, GINGER, Peter HACKETT_, gouged into the wood with compass points and filled in so hard with pencil that the place where they send the desks to be cleaned in the summer holidays haven't got a hope of getting it off. Pure suffering is what you can see there; human souls screaming. He's got a _T ORNSHAW_ going at the bottom that gets deeper and blacker all the time. Nobody knows who first asked the question, but the desks are so old and grotty - proper inkwells at the top, water stains all over the wood from being stored in the caretaker's shed where the roof leaks - that there's a rumour it was back in the Dark Ages. Ornshaw might have started the rumour. Along with putting his hand up to every question and then saying that he just wanted to go to the toilet, and sitting there nodding in agreement for half an hour then asking the teacher if they could repeat that from the beginning, it's one of the ways he gets through the day.

He's not the only one who's tried the other method more than a couple of times, which is working with your free hand under the desk in your lap, and giving yourself a feel through your trousers whenever anyone sitting near you's looking in the other direction. He found out about the brilliant shivery ending you get at other times, if you keep it up long enough, about a year ago, thankyou very, _very_ much - the part that leaves your heart bouncing off the walls of your chest like you've just run the two-twenty yards, but feels a lot better down there - and these days, after some furtive discussion to establish that none of them are breaking anything, they're all at it. They're not just at it, they're in competition. Ornshaw can't remember what nit suggested trying to see who could get closest to it in the classroom, but telling them to sod off would have been admitting defeat, wouldn't it? Burgess keeps winning, but only because he sits at the back. Those of them like Ornshaw, Chambers and Fensham just have to be more resourceful.

But he's _so_ bloody bored. Dicks is going on about the assassination of Julius Caesar now, chalk flying across the blackboard, and once he gets started, there's no stopping him. Nobody's as mad as Dicks when it comes to dead Romans. They're all going to be here into second break at this rate. Ornshaw sticks his hand high in the air, on the theory that nobody who looks as if they know what they're talking about ever gets asked to answer a real question. "Mr Dicks!"

Across the room, Maureen Selby's had her hand up for five minutes and is starting to flag. Stacey's arm has nearly reached the point of being parallel with his desk, and he's resorted to propping it up with his other hand. Ornshaw waves harder. "Sir, there's something I need to know!"

Dicks doesn't stop writing. "What is it this time, Ornshaw?"

"If Caesar was warned about the Ides of March, sir, why didn't he just stay in bed that day?"

"Because the Senate, whom he had summoned, were waiting for him, and to fail to arrive would have been an insult to them. Men in Rome had honour when they were deemed worthy of it by others."

"But, sir, they murdered him when he got there."

There's a few sniggers up and down the room. Barry Talbot starts reciting a ruder version of 'Julius Caesar, the Roman geezer' under his breath. Dicks bangs a hard full stop on the board with the chalk and turns around. "That's beside the point, Ornshaw, and this is history class, not your personal forum. Put your hand down!"

Ornshaw wants to do as he's told, of course, so he sticks it back under the desk. Dicks starts to march slowly down the row. "Now, which one of you lot can astound me by telling me who led the conspiracy?"

Chambers raises his hand. "Brutus!"

_Crawler_, Burgess mouths. He quietly makes sick noises.

"And why, Chambers?"

"Haven't asked him, sir, don't know."

Dicks is in a rotten mood, which isn't ever that surprising, because he's rotten all over. And Ornshaw knows that he definitely, definitely shouldn't try it, not today, but he's so cheesed off, and it's _sitting there_, isn't it? Now he actually gives it some thought and doesn't just muck about, he's getting that tingle that takes ages to go away unless he does something. And when it happens, the idea burrows its way into his brain, gets a hold in there and _makes_ him think about it, and then the more warm and tingly everything gets.

Ornshaw shifts from side to side in his seat. Well, that doesn't help. Now all he's managed to do is pull the seam of his zip tight against his willy, which might be dead uncomfortable at other times, but at the moment has him wishing he could get into a position that'd let him rub against it. He opens his hand across the front of his trousers as sneakily as he can, outlining his bits between the upside-down 'v' of his first and middle fingers, and pushes down on the fabric, but it just makes him feel twitchy and want a good rub all the more. He actually thinks about asking if he really can leave the room, so he can have a go at himself in the bogs, but he doesn't fancy his chances.

He eyes Dicks as he parades between the desks. Down the first row, turn in front of Collins; up the second row, turn in front of Dadds. You can see the pattern. After counting it a couple of times, Ornshaw's worked out that there's about forty seconds each round between the moment Dicks first has his back to him and the point where he walks back into range. If he allows for random factors coming into play, he reckons he gets thirty.

He can do _lots_ in thirty seconds.

So, bearing in mind that any moment might see someone dropping their pen, bending down to get it, and putting themselves right on eye level with all of this, Ornshaw spreads his knees just slightly further, curls his fingers around the shape of his willy, and squeezes, gently. It's never as good as it is holding it properly, and being all sensitive and feeling your heart beating under the skin the same way you do in your wrists, but his underwear as he moves up and down is halfway to making up for it. He likes the friction, you see. Soft, but ticklish. And he's going from tingly to stiff. Sometimes at home he tries to wait it out for a while on purpose before he finishes, to see how stiff it can get, and how nice he can stand making it feel when it does, but _having_ to keep stopping isn't half the fun. He practises willing Dicks to drop dead, but it doesn't work. It never blinking does.

"As Caesar passed the theatre of Pompey," Dicks is saying, "the senators made a gesture to him -"

"Was it like this, sir?"

"No, Fensham, it was not like that - and watch your manners in the classroom, boy!"

Ornshaw has trouble keeping a straight face, for more than one reason. He discovers that if he lifts one side of his bum off the chair and balances by leaning his weight on his other elbow, he can push harder against his hand and still look like he's just slouching over his desk. He's getting _really_ stiff now, and he knows it's time to pack it in, but there's something sort of hypnotic about the movement. He slides as close to the desk as he can, feeling for his zip. Works it down, a bit at a time. When he can get his fingers inside, he drags them all the way up the length of his willy, and when he rubs that spot that's underneath, it gives him a shiver that isn't _the_ shiver, but's getting so bloody close to it that his eyelids start to flutter shut. But he's still counting.

_Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds._

When he hears it, his brain can't make sense of it at first. Then he realizes that it's his name. Said very, very slowly, and somewhere very close to him. He realizes it at about the same time that he starts to think how he can't hear footsteps across the floor any longer.

Ornshaw raises his head, his hand still stuffed in his trousers and his fingers still wrapped firmly around his willy, and finds himself looking Mr Dicks, who's standing about a foot away from him, right in his popping eyes.

All he can think of, at that moment, apart from how he's going to get out of this one, is, _The git took a shortcut._

"Bursary, Ornshaw," Dicks says. His voice is deepest death, the sort the guards have in films about escapes from Stalag Luft Three, when they walk into the barracks and find the British up to their necks in a tunnel. "Three-thirty."

And Ornshaw knows he's not going to get out of it; not now, not ever.

* * *

Dadds said once that walking to the office for a slippering must be how the French aristocrats felt when they were riding in the cart to the guillotine. Ornshaw thinks the Frogs had it easy, because they had a one-way journey and didn't have to sit on it afterwards. The skin on his bum has to be fairly tough by now, but mostly it's being told to bend over by old Dicks that he has trouble sticking. He'd rather go to the Head and be caned, to be honest with you; at least he'd get that on the hands.

The corridors are quiet at this time of day, empty of all the other lucky sods already on their way home for tea and the telly. It always sounds strange only hearing his own footsteps echoing. A mate; he could have done with Danny or Fensham here to face the music for something, even if Fensham did laugh like a drain when Ornshaw told him why he had to go. Strength in numbers, and all that. He could have done with ten minutes in the bogs, too, even if he has to pull the chain afterwards to sound less suspicious. Dicks being so hopping mad with the lot of them might have kept his willy quiet for the rest of the lesson, but after starting and not finishing, the way it keeps feeling against his underwear sort of clues him in to the fact that it's not going to take much to wake it up again. The only thing that stops him diving in on his way past is the thought of what's going to happen if he turns up late as well. It seems to take Ornshaw a long time to climb the stairs to the bursary office, but he still gets there too quick. He knocks on the door and waits to be called in. It's like waiting for the dentist.

Dicks is pouring a cup of tea. He doesn't look up from it until Ornshaw coughs loudly. Then he gives a smile so horrible that it almost makes Ornshaw look forward to being belted, just so he can get away from it faster.

"My, my, Ornshaw, that doesn't sound very healthy. Perhaps it would be wise to refrain from any activities that might deplete your strength further."

"May I be excused from PE this week, sir?"

The not-smile drops off Dicks's face, and he puts his cup down with a clatter. "No, Ornshaw, you may not! You may, however, tell me what was so stirring about today's history lesson that you were moved to self-gratification in the middle of the classroom!"

"Scratching, sir; been under the doctor."

Dicks stands, and walks around the desk. He stands in front of Ornshaw, his hands clasped behind his back, and leans forward. You can see his nostrils trembling ever so slightly in indignation if you look. "Right spot, Ornshaw. But _wrong motion_!"

"Itch, sir, honest." Ornshaw can see the slipper from the corner of his eye, perched on the top shelf of the open cupboard. Who had the idea of calling a great heavy plimsoll a slipper, anyway? It's not as if it ever made it hurt any less, is it? Far as he sees things, it's a big joke right from the start, and it's never one any of the kids are in on. And it's a waste of time trying to talk his way out of this; he can tell. It's obviously all clicked in Dicks's head a long way back. _Come on_, he thinks, _get it over with, and both of us can clear off. Haven't you got a bloody home to go to?_

Dicks faces the window, and takes another swig of his yucky tea. "Do you know what you're here for, Ornshaw?" he says.

Ornshaw digs his nails into the palms of his hands with the effort of trying not to give him a v-sign. It works, but he doesn't feel any better for it. "The slipper, sir."

"And what do you think about it?"

"That I should have worn thicker underpants today, sir." The tea bangs down on the desk again. Dicks turns on him in the style of a rabid Alsatian.

"The quality of your underwear, Ornshaw, will not make any difference whatsoever, I can assure you! You and I shall be working together to come up with something more apt than usual for the little exhibition you decided to stage this afternoon. What would your suggestions be?"

"Haven't got any, sir," Ornshaw says. There's a feeling starting to creep around somewhere in the bottom of his stomach. It's his doom feeling, the one he gets when he knows he's in dead, six-feet-under trouble, and there's nothing he can do except stand there like a berk and wait for it to clobber him.

"Then it's lucky that I've given this matter some thought, isn't it? And as you seem to get such enjoyment from embarrassing yourself, I'm sure that you'll welcome my decision." Dicks moves to stand in front of him, pausing for a moment. Then he says, "Lower your trousers and underwear, please."

Ornshaw gawps at him. He can't do anything else. They're all used to having the daylights belted out of them, but nobody's had it on the bare bum since infants. If Dicks expects him to drop 'em right here, he's got to have finally gone barmy; completely round the twist, nutty as a fruitcake. He couldn't have heard him right, that'll be it. "_Sorry_, sir?"

"No need to apologize. Just take them down, and then we'll have some further discussion." Dicks removes the slipper from the cupboard, and puts it on the desk. It sits there like an elephant in the room. When Ornshaw doesn't move, he looks over his podgy shoulder at him and lifts his eyebrows sharply. "Well, lad, I haven't got all day."

He's dreaming. He's flipping _got_ to be - having a bloody nightmare, to be exact. Odds-on he's going to turn over any minute now and have it be just the usual. Slowly, Ornshaw reaches for his belt, and starts to unfasten it. He opens the button of his trousers. He pulls his zip down, and lets his trousers slide over his hips and hit the floor; steps out of them reluctantly.

"Come along, Ornshaw. You're not finished yet."

Ornshaw has another quick look at the slipper. "Can I have a thousand lines, sir?"

"And what good would that do? No, if you like humiliation, then humiliated you're going to most certainly be. Underwear next."

Now absolutely hopeless, Ornshaw hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his underpants and tugs them down and off as fast as he can, because he knows that if he doesn't move quick, he's going to chicken out. Standing there with his shirt and blazer on top and a cold draught freezing his bits off underneath gives him a feeling that he doesn't like at all. His shirt hangs down just far enough for the hem to tickle, but, with his luck, not far enough to cover anything up. He wants to look at the floor, the ceiling; anywhere else but at Dicks.

"Tell me, Ornshaw, how many do you usually receive?"

"Two, four or six, sir." But the old sod knows that. Him and the rest of the teachers have to keep a record of it somewhere.

"Well, that isn't going to be sufficient today." Dicks parks himself in front of him. "This afternoon, we're going to have four sets of six apiece, in between which we'll be taking short breaks for you to collect yourself and reflect on your misdemeanours. I can't make it fairer than that, can I?"

For the first time in ages, Ornshaw can actually feel himself shake. He's stuck six before, when he hasn't had the chance to pad the seat of his trousers first, and still been walking afterwards. But the thought of four times that, straight on his unprotected bum, makes goosepimples pop all over. For a split second, he considers grabbing his clothes, getting dressed again, and just legging it out of school. He watches from under his eyelashes as Dicks picks up the slipper and motions to the table opposite the door. He feels so exposed, he might as well be completely starkers.

"Come here, please, Ornshaw, and bend over."

Ornshaw looks at the table. The sadistic git. All this telling them that it's for their own good. Something takes hold of him suddenly; pride, as proud as you can be standing there like a kid waiting to be spanked. All right, he thinks. Let Dicks dish out whatever he's got; he can take this. He's going to show him.

And when this school cobblers is all over, the whole lot of them are going to come out on top.

He has to go down over the hard surface gingerly. His blazer's long enough to give him a bit of protection where he needs it most, but not much. If he can't hold still, he's going to get more pain from that table than he'll get from the slipper, and given the choice between one and the other, he'd rather just not sit down for the rest of the week. He can feel his cheeks burning, and he knows he's got to be bright scarlet. It's funny how his face can be hot at the same time that his bum's still freezing cold. Ornshaw folds one arm underneath him and tries to rest his weight on it. He's shaking again. What he hates more than anything is that Dicks might be able to see it.

He braces himself for the first one, but it catches him out when it comes; it always does. It's like no matter how bad you imagine it's going to be, it's always worse when it happens. The hard, stinging smack lands across the right side of his bum, swaying him off balance, and he grabs at the edge of the table without even thinking straight; he just does it. The second and third hurt twice as much on top of the first one. The next three switch to his left, and now Ornshaw's pressing his lips tight, but he still won't do it. He will. not. bloody. cry.

The noise stopping's what he notices first. That the sting isn't getting added to comes a couple of seconds later. When he hears Dicks say, "First set complete," he doesn't shift from his position, just stays there, trying to control his breathing. A very small part of him wonders how his bum looks stuck in the air and what else somebody could see if they walked in. He's shivering all over.

"Now, Ornshaw, might this be an answer to the trouble you've caused?"

"Yes, sir." Ornshaw coughs a bit. "Thankyou, sir."

"Have you got anything to say?"

"No, sir."

"No? Well, I do urge you to come up with something."

It hasn't hurt this much before. Ornshaw's definite on that one. But then he hasn't had as many as this before, and he hasn't been stripped off for it. This time it's lower down, not far from the backs of his legs. The slipper's sole feels heavier. His whole backside's burning, and the warmth that stays there after each smack makes him aware of every bit of his skin at the same time. His knuckles go white as he curls them tighter around the table. He desperately wants to get his bum as far away as he can from what's being done to it, but, at the same time, the shivers are slowly turning into something he's never felt before. Or something that he's felt alright, only not in this sort of position.

The last one lands on the inner curves of his bum, going right through him. Like it pushes it out the other side, his willy starts to stand up. Stiffer than he's ever got before without touching it.

Dicks says something, but his voice is blurry and Ornshaw can't hear it properly at first, and, anyway, he doesn't want to know. He feels like speaking English is getting to be too much to bother with.

"Halfway mark, I said, Ornshaw, if you're feeling any more expressive yet."

Ornshaw tries to raise his head from where it's been touching his arm. It's the hardest work he's ever done. "Can I have five hundred lines then, sir?"

When the next smack comes a second or two later, he squeezes his eyes shut, but not as tight as he wants to squeeze between his legs. Ornshaw feels his nose burn, and tears roll sloppily down his hot cheeks, but he's not really crying in that way; it's that with the slipper hurting so much but his willy tingling at the same time, his brain's getting mixed up. Just concentrating on not banging into the table's edge starts to be about as much as he can manage. He tugs at his blazer, trying to get some more of it underneath him. It brushes his willy when it comes, the wool rougher than his underpants.

He yelps. He jumps, all his muscles clench, and the final smack goes off-centre and hits even harder. As the sting dies away, he hears Dicks huff through his nose. Ornshaw couldn't care less. All he wants to do is rub on that material. He moves his hips slowly, in a painful wriggle; at least he hopes that that's how it looks. The tickling, nice-hurt gets stronger, and another few tears leak out.

"Ornshaw, I advise boys to keep as still as they're able. Moving only makes it more difficult for both of us."

Ornshaw tries to speak and can't. He manages to let go of the table long enough to wipe at his nose with the back of his hand so he can get some more air in that way; he gets snot all over his face, but he doesn't give a monkey's. "Can't help it, sir," he finally manages to get out.

"Well, lad, we have one more set to go, so I'll ask you for the last time. Would you care to explain yourself?"

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Ornshaw holds his blazer tight enough that he can get that friction. It's gone from being too rough to something he'll take anything he can get from. He wants it so badly now, it's getting hard to breathe. He feels dizzy and sore and amazing, all at the same time. "Yes, sir."

"Out with it, then," Dicks says, briskly.

Ornshaw aches so much that he doesn't know whether he can take any more, but every new smack he gets now makes the hot tingling in his bum shoot right between his legs. When he eases himself down closer to the table, and runs his thumb over the tip of his willy, his knees feel weak. And that voice that's always in his head, telling him to go down fighting, still hasn't shut up.

This is one round he's going to win.

"Been playing with myself in class, sir."

"I'm not asking you what you were doing, Ornshaw! I'm already well aware of it! The question is _why?"_

"'Cos I thought it was funny, sir."

"Do you still think it's funny now?"

Ornshaw manages to use his thumb a second time. He digs his teeth into his lip to stop the noise that almost comes out, and gasps a bit instead. "_No, sir_."

"I didn't think so! I hope that our little talk has been as embarrassing for you as your antics in the classroom were for everyone else."

Ornshaw would be crossing his fingers behind his back now if he could. He doesn't care any more if Dicks decides to belt him again in the middle of assembly and let the whole school see his willy, or about anything on the entire planet for that matter, apart from crossing the finish line. It might be just having to wait so long, but he's never wanted it more than he does right this minute. Just a bit more, please, anyone who's listening up there, do him a favour...

"Sir," he says; his voice goes out of control, and he tries again. "Sir, can I have the rest?"

Dicks pauses, and then gives a short sigh. "You want to get it over with, I presume?"

"Yes, sir, quickly, please, sir!" Ornshaw shuts his eyes again, waiting for it. When the smack comes, it still catches him off guard, but it's dulled, the impact going deeper than the sting. It hurts, and he feels it all the way down to the soles of his feet. But it gives him enough red-hot sensation all over, all of a sudden, that he does it; kicks into that fantastic ten seconds where his head empties completely.

His hips jerk. His fingers grab at his willy underneath him without him telling them to. He goes off so hard that his legs don't just shake, they nearly give way.

He wets himself.

And he can feel by the way it's dribbling down that it has to be going on the table as well.

For a minute Ornshaw just freezes there, with his heart going crackers in his chest, shock making all the good feelings run ice cold, trying to work out exactly what the bloody hell went wrong and whether or not he got so worked up that he did himself an injury and now everything down there leaks into everything else. Oh, mum, if this gets around school, not even he's going to live it down.

The thing is, though, he can definitely smell something, but it doesn't smell like pee. And it doesn't feel like pee, either. It feels like slippery goo. When Ornshaw lifts his head a bit and takes a surreptitious dekko, he can see the drops of it on the wood, and the way it sticks to his fingers, sort of milky-clear. Like he blew his nose, but it came out his willy instead.

And then he thinks about the stuff in the books they get given about babies and sperm, and how they were all arguing about how you'd make it come out when you wanted it to go where it's supposed to go, and suddenly the sex thing _makes sense_.

Well, he can't work out yet why getting slippered on his bum made his sperm decide it was time to try and make a baby, but _most_ of it makes sense.

He's a man. He feels so proud.

Until he hears Dicks say, "Stand, please," and his head comes down from the clouds it's been up in and he just feels flipping _sticky_. And half-naked. And like he just wants to curl up in a ball around his willy and keep it there in a warm space where nobody can get anywhere near it for a while, including him. And there's also the question of what he's left on his hand, the table, and probably some of his blazer as well, which is going to be staring everybody right in the face as soon as he gets up. As far as he can see, he's down to two choices: own up, or pretend he's got no idea where it came from and ask Dicks to explain it to him. He'd try the second one usually, but he's too achy and tired, and now he can think about more than one part of his body again, he can almost feel the bruises starting to pop out. His bum's going to be Joseph's coat tomorrow.

"Can't, sir," he says.

"Would you care to tell me why?"

"Got a problem, sir."

Dicks clears his throat into the otherwise perfect silence. When he speaks, he at least sounds embarrassed; he'll give him that. "Ornshaw, in my experience, it's not uncommon for boys of your age to... react... when subjected to discipline. Get yourself dressed again, and it should pass quite soon."

"Too late, sir."

"_How_ is it 'too late', Ornshaw?"

Ornshaw props himself up on his elbows far enough that he can look over his shoulder without lifting himself off the table. "Can I have a handkerchief, sir?" he says.

And just for the look that starts off as confusion and that he gets to watch change into complete horror, he'd have a rotten slippering every day for the rest of his life.

The hanky whisks through Ornshaw's line of vision and is deposited next to his elbow. Dicks spins on his heel and takes a violent interest in the books on his shelves. "Get yourself cleaned up, boy," he says, through what sound like barely clenched teeth. "And put your trousers back on. And don't dawdle over it, please!"

"Yes, sir. What shall I do then, sir?"

"Get out, Ornshaw. _Get out!"_

It doesn't really take that long to wipe himself and the table; there isn't the bucketloads that Ornshaw thought there was, though he's still impressed with how soggy the hanky is. Getting his underpants and trousers absolutely comfortable straight after he pulls them up is trickier, because it all still feels more sensitive than normal down there, but he sorts it out. It's funny how he doesn't know whether he wants to tell anybody else about this, yet, even though it'd get more interest tomorrow than this week's Tiger. He'd rather have another go first and see if he can do it again. He zips himself up. "Sir?" he says.

"_Yes, Ornshaw?"_

"D'you think that I'll need the slipper again soon, sir?"

For the first time that just about anyone can remember, you can see Dicks squirm, even from behind. "Perhaps detention might be more suited to you," he says, eventually.

Ornshaw's dying to see his expression, although with the smirk he can feel growing on his own face even through the soreness, he's probably better off if he doesn't. He knows he shouldn't push his luck, but it's like having an itch and telling yourself not to scratch it. "Sir?" he says, again.

"Ornshaw."

"Can we call it a draw, sir?"

"This is a school, Ornshaw. Not Stamford Bridge."

"No, sir. Course, sir." Ornshaw finds his bag under the table and hoists it onto his shoulder. He forgets that he's still holding on to anything else until he starts to head for the door, because it's not the sort of thing you see all that often in his mitt, but then it comes back to him. "Mr Dicks?"

"_Ornshaw."_

"Thanks for the hanky, sir." And in the tiny, beautiful space between Dicks turning round and holding out his hand, and the moment when the man tumbles to what he's done, Ornshaw screws it into a ball, dumps it right in his palm, and walks out the door, what's left of the day stretching in front of him all shiny bright and nothing he can't take in his stride, even with his knees still wobbling.


End file.
